


The Art of Deception (You're Doing It Wrong)

by berusama



Category: Merlin (TV) RPF
Genre: Fake/Pretend Relationship, I'm so sorry, M/M, idek what this is
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-04-01
Updated: 2009-04-01
Packaged: 2020-03-07 17:41:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,591
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18878032
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/berusama/pseuds/berusama
Summary: Bradley and Colin have some April Fool's Day fun.





	The Art of Deception (You're Doing It Wrong)

Colin was engaging in some guerrilla sunbathing when he heard Bradley call his name. He knew that tone of voice by now: Bradley had something exciting and possibly idiotic to tell him.

Bradley fell onto the grass next to him, stretching out and then sitting up to face Colin.

“So I was looking at the shooting schedule, which happens to also be a calendar, and I discovered something brilliant. Do you know what Wednesday is?”

“Besides the day after tomorrow?” Colin asked, leaning back into the shade he was sitting at the edge of. If Bradley had found him, who knew how many reprimanding DAs would follow in his wake.

“Besides that,” Bradley agreed.

Colin gave it some thought. "Is it a holiday?"

"Not really."

“Is it arbor day?”

“What? No,” Bradley laughed.

“Good… Is it ground hog’s day?”

“That was ages ago!”

“Is it bring you kid to work day?”

“No; it’s April first.”

“Oh,” Colin said, feigning indifference. Then he slowly turned his head towards Bradley and smiled. “ _Oh_.”

Bradley grinned back mischievously. “Oh, yes.”

\- - -

Bradley insisted they get an early start on planning their April Fool’s pranks, so they spent that night writing love letters to the “Prime Minister” to be left with the mail on Wednesday for Anthony.

“You can’t write that!” Bradley exclaimed, looking at Colin’s third letter in shock.

“You do know he’s not _actually_ the Prime Minister, don’t you Bradley?”

“Yes, _Colin_ , I do. It’s just… unnecessary!”

“Don’t worry, I’m sure he’ll love your romantic prose just as much as my pornographic ones.”

“You are a twisted man, Morgan,” Bradley laughed. He looked down at his fourth letter and asked, “What’s another word for hazel?”

“I've told you: his eyes aren’t hazel.”

“Fine, then what color _are_ they?”

“They’re like… sea-foam green.”

They stared at each other for a moment before Bradley grinned and said, “That- is brilliant.”

\- - -

By Tuesday evening they had a stack of inexplicable pictures they’d printed out with the words, ‘I don’t believe it!’ at the bottom for Richard and a facebook page made for Katie’s poorly hidden and newly risk-prone stuffed animal.

Their only obstacle left was thinking of something for Angel.

“This is what we get for having wasted all our best prank ideas on her last year,” Colin said, sprawled across the foot of his bed. Bradley grunted his agreement from where he sat against the headboard.

“We could try to get everyone to speak to her in French only.”

“You can’t speak French.”

“Alright, we’ll get everyone to pretend like they can’t hear her so she thinks she’s going crazy.”

“Yeah, that’s a good idea,” Colin laughed, rolling towards Bradley. He affected a breathy falsetto and said, “Bradley? Bradley, quit fooling around! I _know_ you can hear me! Is this your idea of some kind of joke?”

Bradley tried to keep a straight face; he didn’t last long. “Fine. Bad idea.”

“Well I’m sure you’ll think of something,” Colin said, rolling onto his back and nudging at Bradley’s leg in a poor attempt to kick him off the bed.

“Is it bedtime for Colin?” Bradley teased. He crawled off the bed and stretched. “Alright, you get some beauty sleep and I’ll come up with a prank for Angel so magnificent that you all will bathe in my… magnificence.”

“'Kay,” Colin agreed around a yawn. “Get the lights on your way out, will you?”

Bradley shook his head and kicked at one of Colin’s feet before leaving and pointedly not turning out the lights. After a measured pause, however, he opened the door and hit at the light switch until it turned off, then retreated again.

\- - -

Bradley woke up extra early to drop off the love letters in the hotel mail room, email Katie the link to the facebook page, and find a ride to the castle so he could post up the hilariously improbable photos everywhere he thought Richard might be that day.

By the time Colin arrived, Bradley had finished and was feeling quite proud of himself.

“Nice job,” Colin said as he leaned against the make-up trailer next to Bradley. “That was smart work putting the _Repo!_ picture by the tea and coffee.”

“Yeah, thought I’d get two birds with that one.”

“Think of anything for Angel?”

“Well here’s the thing,” Bradley glanced around himself and turned towards Colin as though he were about to reveal a great secret. “I wanted to stick with the theme of making her think she’s going crazy, even after you brutally shot down my first two ideas. We’d have to do something that only she could see so that when she asks other people about it, they can legitimately say they have no idea what she’s talking about.

“Then I thought, well alright, but we can’t really trust anyone else to not bollocks up whatever we decide is the thing that’s going to make her crazy. So it’d have to be just you and me. And there’s not much you and I can do today without attracting outside observers, except be ourselves. Except _not_. Do you see what I’m saying?”

Colin wanted to say yes just so Bradley wouldn’t try to explain again, but the look on his face must have given him away.

“Look, it’s easy. We just have to do something totally outrageous when only Angel can see us but then act normal around everyone else so that Angel thinks she’s seeing something that no one else is. Which she will be.”

“Alright,” Colin said slowly. “And what will this something be?”

“Well I had a few ideas, but I think the thing that would get the best reaction from her would be for us to pretend we’re dating.”

Colin blinked. He didn’t quite know what to say to that, except… “You mean, like, holding hands and stuff?”

“Yeah! But only when Angel can see. And it’d have to look like we didn’t know she was watching so she'll tell Katie to look for it too, but it won’t be there when she does.”

Colin thought about it for a moment. “It’d be like acting.”

“Exactly! Not only would we being pranking Angel, we’d also be proving our superior acting skills once we tell her the truth and laugh in her face.”

Bradley was grinning like a loon and for the life of him Colin couldn’t think of why this could possibly be a bad idea.

“Yeah, alright,” he agreed. Bradley laughed and clapped him on the shoulder and it was then Colin saw he’d been hiding one hand behind his back. “What’s that?”

Bradley looked down at the bunch of wild flowers in his hand and grinned some more. “It’s my prop.”

\- - -

Angel was having a good day so far. Granted it was still early, but she’d been dreading today for the last half of March. Last year they hadn’t known each other well enough for Bradley to try and pull any April Fool’s jokes on her, but this year…

She’d made it through her morning and down to the van without incident, where she found Katie and got to hear all about what Colin and Bradley had done to her still-missing stuffed animal.

“There’s a picture of him hanging half-way out a window with a caption that says, 'Look, mum, no hands!',” Katie had recounted, sounding bemused.

Angel had been wary once they’d arrived on set, but she didn’t think the photos of two-headed baby chicks and well endowed dolphins exclaiming, ‘I don’t believe it!’ were meant for her. As she rounded a corner, heading for the make-up trailer, she saw Colin and Bradley standing right outside it. Colin hit Bradley on the arm and Angel hurried back around the corner, hoping they hadn’t seen her.

She waited several seconds before peeking carefully at the boys. Neither of them were looking at her. In fact… Angel’s mouth fell open a little.

Bradley, in full battle-ready costume, was holding out a handful of flowers. Colin smiled, shyly if she were saying so, and accepted them, his hand covering Bradley’s for a moment. Bradley returned the smile and then glanced around, probably looking for witnesses. Angel ducked back, her cheeks heating a little. By the time she looked again, however, the boys were gone. She took a deep breath and made her way to the trailer. Katie was not going to believe this.

\- - -

When the director finally called an end to the day, Angel found that she was more than a little frustrated.

She’d caught Colin and Bradley holding hands twice and whispering to each other once, their thighs pressed flush together as they leaned towards one another on the bench.

Katie, however, had yet to see a thing.

“They’re acting like they always do,” she'd said with a reluctant shrug. She had wanted to see the proof as badly as Angel had wanted to show her. “Just be glad they decided to give you a break for once.” Angel looked at her friend sympathetically. Apparently threatening Bradley hadn’t worked for getting her stuffed animal back.

“Yeah, you’re right. Though I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s something horrible waiting for me when we get back to the hotel.”

“Well if there is we’ll just think of something brilliant to retaliate with,” Katie assured her before being called away by wardrobe.

Angel considered following and asking if she could change now too, but Gwen’s dress was comfortable and the sun was just beginning to set so she waved to the AD and pointed towards the castle courtyard.

Her plans changed, however, when she reached the drawbridge and saw Bradley and Colin, already out of costume, hurrying up the castle steps. There was no one else around, so she followed, the soft soles of Gwen’s shoes making almost no noise as she ran.

\- - -

“Did she follow us?” Bradley breathed into Colin’s ear, his mirth barely restrained.

“Not sure…” Colin strained his eyes to the left, looking for movement at the hall entrance in his peripheral vision. He leaned against the cold stone of the wall and tried to look natural while Bradley laughed into his shoulder, braced in front of him. “Shut up. This is supposed to be clandestine, not humorous.”

Bradley pulled back enough to tease Colin on his word choice – “Clandestine, Colin? Didn’t know you were such a romantic.” – but got an elbow to the side for his trouble.

“Quiet! I think I see her.” Bradley sobered somewhat and Colin could tell he was dying to turn and check for himself. There was a shadow being cast into the hall that definitely wasn’t there a minute ago. “Okay, okay that’s her.”

“How do you know?”

“The shadow’s hair looks like hers.”

Bradley stifled another laugh with his hand and Colin laughed with him so it would look like they’d shared a private joke and not like Bradley had finally cracked.

“Oh god, this is too good,” Bradley whispered in that way he had where he hardly made any sound, but the words were quite distinguishable. Bradley, Colin thought, was a very good whisperer.

“If you don’t stop laughing she’s going to know something’s up. Quick: think of something horrible.”

Bradley paused for only a moment.

“Katie said that if we don’t give back Mr. Snuggles she’s going to harm us in unimaginable ways.”

“Huh,” Colin said. “Is that really its name?”

“No, probably not.” Bradley shifted his forearm where it was braced against the wall. “Is she still there?”

Colin checked for the shadow. “Yeah.”

“What a little voyeur! I’m going to tease her mercilessly over this.” Bradley waited about ten seconds before, “Is she still there?”

“Yes, Bradley. I, uh… I have the feeling she’s waiting for something to happen.”

“Oh.”

“We could just come clean now. Catch her in the act.”

“Do you know how to stage kiss?”

“What?” Colin asked, though he had heard perfectly well. “Yes. Of course.”

“Alright,” Bradley said, sounding as though he were agreeing to something, and leaned in to touch his chin to Colin’s.

Colin played along after a startled second, fisting one hand in Bradley’s t-shirt. It occurred to him, however, that this wasn’t necessarily the picture he wanted Angel carrying around with her and sharing with Katie.

He stepped forward and grabbed Bradley’s hips, spinning them until the blonde’s back hit the wall. And if their lips happened to brush together in the switch, well it wasn’t like they could pull away. Not until they heard a muffled, surprisingly girly squeak and the soft patter of retreating feet, anyway.

Bradley broke the kiss immediately, sneaking to the entrance to make sure Angel had left. When he started laughing like a maniac, Colin assumed that meant she was indeed gone.

“She’s probably gone to get Katie, come on!” he urged, picking up the video camera from its hiding place down the corridor.

\- - -

Angel didn’t think she had ever run so fast in her life.

“It’s true!” she gasped when she finally reached Katie. “It’s all true! Come look!”

By the time they reached the castle, they were both out of breath. They hurried up the stairs, but the closer they got, the louder the voices became.

“—where Colin managed to slip on a perfectly dry floor and sprain his ankle.”

“That’s not what happened!”

“But never fear, Merlin fans. We’ve since had his ankle insured so that if it happens again, Colin owes every single person in the cast and crew 74 Swiss francs, just because we like to piss off the French with foreign currency.”

“What the hell?” Angel demanded, coming out from her hiding place.

Bradley turned and was utterly unconvincing when he exclaimed, “Angel! Katie! What on earth are you two doing here?”

“The real question, Bradley, is what are _you_ two doing here?” She cringed a little when she saw that Colin was still recording, the camera trained on her now.

“What ever do you mean?”

“Angel says she saw you two kissing,” Katie spoke up, looking both confused and amused.

“Did she?” Bradley turned to look at Colin who grinned back at him. “Well I’d have to say she’s right.” His mouth twitched and then, with one last glance at Colin, he grinned and shouted: “April Fool’s!”

Angel was mostly perturbed that Colin seemed to be getting both her and Katie’s reactions on tape.

“What?” she demanded.

“We’ve been pretending that we’re dating all day,” Bradley explained, obviously very proud for some reason.

“You’ve been pretending you’re dating?” Katie clarified.

“Only in front of Angel,” Colin answered.

“Only in front of Angel so that she’d think…?”

“She was going crazy,” Bradley finished happily.

There was a loaded silence for several beats before Angel spoke up.

“You two pretended to be dating as an April Fool’s joke on me?”

“Yeah.”

“Pretty much.”

She glanced at Katie and they shared a knowing look.

“Well thanks, boys,” she said with a smile before turning and walking away.

“If anything, I’d say you two are the ones joking yourselves,” Katie supplied before making her own exit.

“Huh,” Bradley said, turning towards the camera. “She was a lot less indignant than I thought she’d be.”

“Well,” Colin said, still filming Bradley, “at least now she’ll feel stupid for having stalked us all day knowing we knew she was there all along.”

Bradley grinned and Colin turned the camera off for now.

\- - -

It was later, after Bradley had passed Richard and Anthony trading photos and letters, and returned Mr. Snuggles to Katie – “that’s not his name,” she’d insisted – when it occurred to Bradley that no one had tried to play any pranks on him or Colin, even after all the shit they’d put people through last year.

“You’re not planning anything particularly awful, are you?” Bradley asked when he ran into Angel on his way back from Katie’s room.

“Bradley, it’s almost midnight. If you haven’t been pranked yet, you’re probably safe.”

“Hm,” Bradley considered. “Probably. Still. Better hide in Colin’s room for the next fifteen minutes just to be sure.”

Angel had given him a funny look, but he couldn’t place the meaning behind it and he wasn’t about to ask, so he turned towards Colin’s door instead.

“Hey,” Colin greeted him with a smile, stepping back from the door.

“So I’m a little bit disappointed,” Bradley said, crossing to the bed and making himself comfortable. “No one even tried to pull any pranks on us today. I mean, is it just that the entire cast and crew are not as clever as we are?”

“Probably they were discouraged by the idea of what we’d do in return.” They shared a smile and then Colin said, in his most serious actor voice, “Bradley, I think we should keep pretending to be dating.”

“What?”

Before Bradley could be anything but startled, Colin said, “April Fool’s!” in a sing-song way that reminded Bradley strangely of himself.

“Ha, Good one.” Bradley said, trying for nonchalantly put-out. “Hey Colin, I want you to kiss me again like you did in the castle. April Fool’s.”

Colin looked at him strangely: like Bradley hadn’t been mocking him, but was instead serious and a bit deranged.

“What?” Bradley asked when Colin’s strange smile didn’t go away.

“Nothing,” Colin lied, which was obviously a lie because his smile was growing and Bradley just knew he was being laughed at.

“It was a joke!”

“Sure it was. But just so you know, I would if you wanted me to.”

Yes, Bradley was officially being laughed at. He didn’t quite appreciate it.

“Well, trust me, I don’t.”

“April Fool’s?”

“No! Not-April-Fool’s. April-For-Bloody-Serious.”

“No need to get defensive. I know you liked holding my hand today.”

“Oh please, you nearly cried like a girl when I gave you those flowers. Which, by the way, I saw in your bathroom as I came in.” Bradley smirked in triumph until Colin laughed and moved to sit at the other corner of the bed.

“Well they are lovely,” Colin said, leaning back on an elbow and still smiling infuriatingly. “I think I’ll keep them by my bed so that I think of you at night.”

Bradley rolled his eyes and tried not to smile. “April Fool’s?” he asked trying to convey that the joke was tiresome already.

“No. April-For-Bloody-Serious.”

Bradley fell back onto the bed with a huffed laugh. “You are so strange.”

Colin chuckled and Bradley waited a moment before voicing something that had occurred to him half-way through the day. “I didn’t plan the prank on Angel like that just because you’re gay.”

“I know,” Colin assured him. “It was a good prank, even if the girls didn’t think so.”

“Yeah. You think they would have, though, the way they go on about Arthur and Merlin.”

“Well Merlin and Arthur… that’s a bit more obvious don’t you think? Always running after each other.”

“I guess. But they’re not, like… best friends. They don’t run around the castle pulling awesome pranks on people.”

Colin, who was laying down on the bed now too, rolled towards Bradley with a grin. “Am I your best friend, Bradley?”

Bradley eyed him and said, “God, I hope not.” Colin laughed, but then his smile slipped to mischievous again.

“So you think we make a better couple and Merlin and Arthur?”

“Dunno,” Bradley hedged, not sure he was ready for where this conversation seemed to be heading. “I mean, I certainly wouldn’t drink poison just to save your scrawny arse.”

“You’re right,” Colin agreed. “Arthur’s much more chivalrous than you.”

“And he has cooler clothes.”

“And better sword fighting skills.”

“And he’s royalty.”

“Yeah, I think I’d be much better off with Arthur than you.”

“Wait, what? I thought we agreed Arthur and Merlin are the superior couple. You can’t just run off with Arthur, what would Merlin think?”

Colin stared at him for a bit before smiling. “You’re right. It’s best to just let them be together. Which leaves me with you,” he added after a beat.

“How unfortunate for you,” Bradley deadpanned, eyeing Colin who was now propped up on one elbow.

“I’ll survive.”

And then Colin was leaning towards him, just a little, but certainly enough for it to be a definite lean. Towards Bradley. It was all very clear and yet Bradley’s mind seemed to be running in circles. But then Colin bit his lip, waiting for Bradley to decide, and it suddenly felt as though he’d made up his mind ages ago.

Bradley surged up, catching the side of Colin’s mouth, what soon became his smile. Colin tilted his head, aligning their lips before licking along Bradley’s. When he pulled away, Bradley’s eyes narrowed.

“If you say 'April Fool’s' I will punch you in the face.”

“Nah,” Colin said after his surprised laugh. “It’s already the second, anyway.”

Bradley glanced at the clock; it was indeed past midnight. “Excellent,” he said and moved back in for another kiss.

 

Some time later, Colin asked, “So is the prank we did on Angel still a prank if the thing we were aiming to making her believe turned out to be not exactly untrue?”

Bradley thought about it for a moment, running his hand up and down Colin’s back, under his shirt. “Is that your way of asking me whether we’re dating now?”

“Maybe.”

“Well as long as you’re not just using me because I look like Arthur, then I would say yes. If you want.”

Colin laughed into his shoulder and squeezed Bradley’s hand where it lay between their bodies.

“I want.”


End file.
